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As someone on the QT3 forums said, essentially, indie developers don't need YOU as a customer, but neither do YOU as a customer need them because there are plenty of other developers to spend your money on. Found the original link for this thread over on QT3 as well. Smart board.

Anyway, if I'd read more of the Basingstoke comments at the time I'd have seen him say that the RPS mention and ensuing "debate" gave them one of their best sales days for quite a while. Which is fine, I don't have any problem with them expressing an opinion, I just think it's an ungracious opinion to express.

To be clear about curation - being a process of selecting only the best of what's available...

Well perhaps 'curated' isn't quite the right word, but the point is that somebody is playing gatekeeper, saying what is and what is not going to be sold on the store. The quality standards may be pretty lax but it isn't a free-for-all.

Originally Posted by trjp

All this flood of shit through Greenlight has done is make people do a bit of thinking - a bit of WORK - before they buy a game. It's amazing how shy of this people are...

Really? Because when Greenlight turned up, people just voted for X and Y for no real reason other than "lol looks cool" and people frowned upon saying that something shouldn't be Greenlighted. The glut of games hasn't got much to do with Greenlight - it's just a sheer volume of games from every direction, including constant Humble bundles and sales.

Originally Posted by baboonanza

And what can you do as consumers? Support your favourite developers by paying more than the absolute bare minimum for their games. After all, if you want them to keep making the games you love someone will have to give them money.

We're told that we're idiots if we pay more for a game, and the catch-cry on RPS is "wait for a sale" when discussing most games, so I doubt this is going to be followed by many people.

Nalano's Law - As an online gaming discussion regarding restrictions grows longer, the probability of a post likening the topic to the Democratic People's Republic of Korea approaches one.
Soldant's Law - A person will happily suspend their moral values if they can express moral outrage by doing so.

Oh, I don't exactly disagree with this. I did say I'd never been particularly interested in anything Puppygames have made. There are games that don't sell that deserve to but there are a ton of games - a ton - that barely have any business existing.

There's a ton of crap on Steam already, but it's interesting when this debate comes up, it's never the producers of that crap that are moaning they can't make a living. Some people are buying it and enjoying it, and the people who make it seem aware that they're selling to a niche audience and they're never going to make millions and seem happy with it.

It's always the likes of Puppygames complaining, people who are self-styled "middle-tier" indie, who think their games should be selling more than they are, that moan. They think their games are closer to Fez than Infected: The Twin Vaccine so they should be doing far better. They can't accept that maybe the appeal for their game is just as limited as the hidden object shovel-ware on Steam.

We're told that we're idiots if we pay more for a game, and the catch-cry on RPS is "wait for a sale" when discussing most games, so I doubt this is going to be followed by many people.

Of course, but at the end of the day money talks and if you want the games you like to continue being made then you should be prepared to support that. I want more strategy and TBS games made so I support that through Kickstarter/paying more and I will have more influence on that than someone who pays 0.99p.

But I still pay as little as I can for most AAA games since there are plenty of people supporting that guff already.

They can't accept that maybe the appeal for their game is just as limited as the hidden object shovel-ware on Steam.

To bastardise Principal Skinner: "Maybe I'm out of touch. No, wait, it's the customers who are wrong!"

Originally Posted by baboonanza

But I still pay as little as I can for most AAA games since there are plenty of people supporting that guff already.

Alternatively, I don't want to pay much for indie shovelware because there's plenty of people supporting that guff already. At least the good ones. That 'guff' costs a shitload more to make than indies and the level of criticism and expected standard is way higher than your typical indie game. Indies need to stand out because they're in a crowd. AAA games are just expected to be excellent - excellence is considered a passing grade.

Your attitude towards AAA games is how most people will view most titles, because we support games we enjoy. I sure as hell won't buy a shitty turn-based strategy game just 'to show support'. I buy games I enjoy.

Nalano's Law - As an online gaming discussion regarding restrictions grows longer, the probability of a post likening the topic to the Democratic People's Republic of Korea approaches one.
Soldant's Law - A person will happily suspend their moral values if they can express moral outrage by doing so.

Your attitude towards AAA games is how most people will view most titles, because we support games we enjoy. I sure as hell won't buy a shitty turn-based strategy game just 'to show support'. I buy games I enjoy.

Did you read my post? That is exactly what I'm proposing. If you want particular types of games to continue to be made then you should support that by buying them at above rock-bottom prices. Why would I suggest that you buy games that you don't enjoy?

And as to AAA games: The production values may be higher and the experience polished but new ideas and suprises are thin on the ground. I simply don't find the majority of them terribly interesting and for that reason they aren't worth large amounts of money too me. But each to their own eh.

How about we just buy the games we really want to buy and would like to see more of at a price that truly reflects their worth and don't buy the indy shovelware, the AAA retreads and the utter shite mobile ports? Seems like a sensible plan to me.

Yes, I get his point, software sale has a near zero marginal cost and it scales, software support does not. And this is worse when your customer pays in pennies.

So either stop or curtail the support (like Steam and Google do), redirecting everyone to a DIY troubleshooting page, or stop making games that are clearly not valued high enough by your customers for you to make a profit.

Jeff Vogel's article on Indie pricing comes to mind.

There is an ever so slight addition, "or make games/software easier to support". Unity has problems, but a big development base means help can come in from other devs and even players/modders. Java can be "useless" but it did minecraft well.

Other times, a custom made binary in C++ (or whatever the flavour of the "elite") programmed to the metal will go wrong somewhere, and you'll have to decide if searching for the bugs are worth it.

Some of the developers care too much, but reply with "sorry, I'm unable to fix that bug" and some respond with "I'll try" and dig themselves into a hole.

Also, as to the death threats. They are horrid. But put up your contact details anywhere (phone booth, advertising papers, ebay) and you'll get them regardless. Sadly some people go out and about to find others to attack. Look for help in the community (gamers/developers/etc) and have a good defence for those scum.

That 'guff' costs a shitload more to make than indies and the level of criticism and expected standard is way higher than your typical indie game.

That's a really good point. Assassins Creed 27 costs about $60 million to make. And costs $60 to buy. You could extrapolate that to say that a $1 million game should only cost $1. By that logic, $1 is a fair price for most one-person indie games that will be luckly to have a budget one-tenth of that.

The counter-argument is that the indie market is so, so much smaller than that for AAA. But is it really? Getting on Steam is easy enough now, the new consoles all have significant indie markets... sure, indie is still a lot smaller than AAA but is it that much smaller? It's an order of magnitude bigger than it used to be.

That's a really good point. Assassins Creed 27 costs about $60 million to make. And costs $60 to buy. You could extrapolate that to say that a $1 million game should only cost $1. By that logic, $1 is a fair price for most one-person indie games that will be luckly to have a budget one-tenth of that.

The counter-argument is that the indie market is so, so much smaller than that for AAA. But is it really? Getting on Steam is easy enough now, the new consoles all have significant indie markets... sure, indie is still a lot smaller than AAA but is it that much smaller? It's an order of magnitude bigger than it used to be.

I'd say the indie market is much bigger than the AAA market now. You could count the number of AAA games being released in a month on one, maybe two hands depending on the month. There are buckets of indie games coming out every month.

"Halo is designed to make the player think "I look like that, I am macho sitting in my undies with my xbox""

The race to the bottom seems like a dangerous thing. But I think it's more of a temporary phase. A result of developers not being able to adapt to the new markets and trends like bundles and sales in an intelligent manner. There are a lot of opportunists that look to make a quick buck and a lot of good people follows them thinking that's the way to go, and thus the public is learning not to buy full price. This will be damaging, but not in the long term. A lot of developers won't be able to adapt, a lot of good developers will go under, and that is sad, but in the end people will wise up, both consumers and developers and things will settle into a better ecosystem. People will learn that buying a lot of stuff that they're not going to play even if it's just one dollar isn't worth it. People will get smarter about their purchases. And developers will become smarter about bundling and sales, and perhaps they will stop thinking about becoming the next big thing, which is something is a bit more worrisome than the supposed race to the bottom.
There's been a whole lot of changes in the way game and its business are made so it is to be expected that people need a bit of time to get used to them.

Originally Posted by RobF

stuff

This was the response I was waiting for. Thanks rob, you're always so eloquent and easy to read.

We're told that we're idiots if we pay more for a game, and the catch-cry on RPS is "wait for a sale" when discussing most games, so I doubt this is going to be followed by many people.

But it's a bit of "in vacuum" way of thinking. What do you think people do with money saved in sales deals ? Buy luxury yachts or expensive houses, greedy bastards ? Since video games are mainstream they are not just competing with other games, it's not AAA vs "indies" at least not only. Video games compete with so many other things for peoples wallets and if they are loosing (at least ) at full price, well better think about that, not just Steam sales are killing us...

People will learn that buying a lot of stuff that they're not going to play even if it's just one dollar isn't worth it. People will get smarter about their purchases. And developers will become smarter about bundling and sales, and perhaps they will stop thinking about becoming the next big thing, which is something is a bit more worrisome than the supposed race to the bottom.

Actually this is relevant. My own behaviour has changed, partly due to a particular game taking up rather a large chunk of my gaming time, but also I've looked at my huge backlog and now it's really hard to justify any purchase, it's got to be absolutely worth the money but also worth the time. I find myself in a position that I can largely afford whatever games I want, but lack the time to play them all, and I'm sure I'm not alone in that regard, so I have learned to buy less, and that has been very important for me. While it's anecdotal I can't help but suspect other gamers are in a similar boat (see the presence of backlog-related threads here for instance and Backloggery).

Bundles really are a great idea in that it exposes the gamer to new things but sadly the quality bar has dropped so low that I generally won't buy bundles any more because most of them consist of maybe 1 worthwhile game and a bunch of shovelware. I suspect some devs are now just writing small shit games specifically to get their 20p from a bundle and putting in a relevant amount of effort for that. Yep, bundles have actually incentivised creation of absolute drivel for people to feel they're getting more value when spending $5 and then never play. For me that's absolute bullshit of the highest order and needs to improve.

I spent £5 on bargain buckets in the past. It's just now I don't leave the house to do so. At the very least, you'll get a new sale out of me instead of second hand in the past. I doubt I spend more/less on gaming, and I doubt less goes to the developers now (unless publishing/distribution deals/costs are worse).

Also, I get 20p games in 20p bundles. I get £10 games in £10 bundles.

The distribution of games will always be like Diamonds, and not like rice. It'll be an artificial value and demand.

When you can spend £250 on a space ship in a game that already costs £50, it's not that people are spending less...
When "causal" (not my labelling) can turn flappy bird into an overnight millionaire, it's not that there are less customers...

As someone on the QT3 forums said, essentially, indie developers don't need YOU as a customer, but neither do YOU as a customer need them because there are plenty of other developers to spend your money on.

I never once heard you say,
I need you, I don't need you,
I need you, I don't need you
and all of that jiving around.

IMO a really good game. But hit the same problem all "dynamic difficulty" strategy games hit (Some C&C and Homeworld 2 etc) that it scales past possibility if you do too well early, or choose a non-perfect tech tree route. So that kills it for me, as it turns from a fun game to an impossible grind, with losses weakening you more so re-playability means restarting to the beginning and getting stuck again.

If it had a standard difficulty curve (either sudden or gentle, as long as it's consistent) then it would be much better IMO. Keep "auto scale difficulty" for a hardcore/insane difficulty option.

Oh, but what would I know, because I'm a "worthless customer" and my feedback is "whining entitlement"...